It’s possible that I shall make an ass of myself. But in that case one can always get out of it with a little dialectic. I have, of course, so worded my proposition as to be right either way (K.Marx, Letter to F.Engels on the Indian Mutiny)
Saturday, October 30, 2021
Hmong American PhD student rejected for prestigious fellowship for not being in ‘underrepresented’ group
Khier Casino Fri, October 29, 2021,
A Hmong American Ph.D. candidate studying neuroscience at the University of Wisconsin-Madison was refused a fellowship after it was determined that she was not from an “underrepresented” group because she’s Asian American.
“Model minority” myth: In a Twitter thread, doctoral student Kao Lee Yang said she was nominated for the prestigious Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s (HHMI) Gilliam Fellowship but was told by a committee that she didn’t fit its “Racial/Ethnic Underrepresentation” criteria.
“We are not a monolithic group,” she said. “While some Asian Americans are academically successful, others like the Hmong, are underrepresented in STEM and academia in general.”
Yang asked the fellowship committee and others in the scientific community to name a Hmong American woman neuroscientist: “I would love to connect with her if she is out there.”
“I am an example of the consequences resulting from the continued practice of grouping people with East /Southeast/South Asian heritages underneath the ‘Asian American’ umbrella,” she added.
Yang went on to explain how the “model minority” myth hurts Asians: “But studies making those claims are looking at aggregated data and are treating Asian Americans as a monolithic group.”
Underrepresentation in science: Under its eligibility criteria, HHMI defined “excluded groups to be persons who identify as Black or African American, Latinx or Hispanic American, American Indian, Native Hawaiian, Alaska Native, and from groups indigenous to the Pacific Island territories of the United States.”
But it does acknowledge that underrepresentation varies “from setting to setting.”
Yang pointed out a couple of ways fellowships like HHMI can do better. First, “Disaggregate Asian American data in studies.” Second, fellowships should broaden “perspectives on what it means to be an ethnic/racial minority who is underrepresented in science and how to support underrepresented students.”
#AcademicTwitter: Yang has received an outpouring of support from fellow scientists and academics since she first posted her thread on Oct. 27.
According to the 2010 US Census, 260,073 people of Hmong descent reside in the United States up from 186,310 in 2000. The vast majority of the growth since 2000 was from natural increase, except for the admission of a final group of over 15,000 refugees in 2004 and 2005 from Wat Tham Krabok in Thailand. Of the 260,073 Hmong-Americans, 247,595 or 95.2% are Hmong alone, and the remaining 12,478 are mixed …
2021-07-30 · HMONG Americans are a minority ethnic group in the USA mainly living across certain states. Most Hmong Americans are either those that immigrated to the United States as refugees in the late 1970s or are their descendants. Here we explain all you need to know.
NOT JUST MUSK International opposition mounts over proposed U.S. EV tax credit
FILE PHOTO: An electric vehicle fast charging station is seen in the parking lot of a Whole Foods Market in Austin
David Shepardson Sat, October 30, 2021
WASHINGTON (Reuters) -The European Union, Germany, Canada, Japan, Mexico, France, South Korea, Italy and other countries wrote U.S. lawmakers saying a proposed U.S. electric vehicle tax credit violates international trade rules, according to a joint letter made public Saturday.
A group of 25 ambassadors to Washington wrote U.S. lawmakers and the Biden administration late Friday saying "limiting eligibility for the credit to vehicles based on their U.S. domestic assembly and local content is inconsistent with U.S. commitments made under WTO multilateral agreements."
The U.S. Congress is considering a new $12,500 tax credit that would include $4,500 for union-made U.S. electric vehicles and $500 for U.S.-made batteries. Only U.S. built vehicles would be eligible for the $12,500 credit after 2027, under a House proposal released this week. Canada and Mexico have issued separate statements in the last week opposing the plan. The U.S. State Department declined to comment Saturday and the White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The proposal is backed by President Joe Biden, the United Auto Workers (UAW) union and many congressional Democrats, but opposed by major international automakers, including Toyota Motor Corp, Volkswagen AG, Daimler AG, Honda Motor Co, Hyundai Motor Co and BMW AG.
A dozen foreign automakers wrote California's two senators on Friday urging them to abandon the plan that they said would discriminate against the state.
UAW President Ray Curry said the provision will "create and preserve tens of thousands of UAW members' jobs" and "would be a win for auto manufacturing workers."
The EV tax credits would cost $15.6 billion over 10 years and disproportionately benefit Detroit's Big Three automakers - General Motors, Ford Motor and Chrysler-parent Stellantis NV - which assemble their U.S.-made vehicles in union-represented plants.
The ambassadors that also include Poland, Sweden, Spain, Austria, Netherlands, Belgium, Cyprus, Ireland, Malta, Finland, Romania and Greece said the legislation would harm international automakers.
They said it "would violate international trade rules, disadvantage hard-working Americans employed by these automakers, and undermine the efforts of these automakers to expand the U.S. EV consumer market to achieve the (Biden) administration’s climate goals."
The letter added it "puts U.S. trading partners at a disadvantage."
Autoworkers at the foreign automakers in the countries that wrote are nearly all unionized but not in the United States.
"Our governments support workers’ right to organize. It is a fundamental right and should not be used in the framework of tax incentives, setting aside the opportunities for nearly half of America autoworkers," they wrote.
(Reporting by David Shepardson; editing by Diane Craft)
AN EARLY MUSLIM STATE
U.N. urges Mali to end hereditary slavery
FILE PHOTO: A Tuareg child pushes away a Bella girl at a camp for Malian refugees in Goudebou Nellie Peyton Fri, October 29, 2021
DAKAR (Reuters) - U.N. human rights experts on Friday called on Mali to crack down on hereditary slavery after a series of violent attacks against people born into servitude.
Slavery was officially abolished in colonial Mali in 1905, but a system persists in which people are still forced to work without pay for families that enslaved their ancestors, the United Nations group of experts said in a statement.
Malian law does not specifically criminalise this form of slavery, so perpetrators are rarely held accountable, they said.
In September, a group of people considered slaves were attacked by other Malians who objected to their celebrating Independence Day, according to the U.N. experts.
The attacks went on for two days, leaving one man dead and at least 12 people injured. It was the eighth such attack this year in the Kayes region, about 500 kilometres (310 miles) northwest of the capital Bamako, the experts said.
"The fact that these attacks occur so often in this area shows that descent-based slavery is still socially accepted by some influential politicians, traditional leaders, law enforcement officials and judicial authorities in Mali," they said.
"We have condemned this heinous practice many times before - now the Malian government must take action, starting with ending impunity for attacks on 'slaves'."
At least 30 people have been arrested from both sides and police have launched an investigation, the U.N. statement added.
Malian authorities could not immediately be reached for comment.
Descent-based slavery is also practiced in Mali's neighbours Senegal, Burkina Faso, Niger and Mauritania, which became the last country in the world to abolish slavery in 1981.
In Mali, prosecutors charge most hereditary slavery cases as misdemeanours, according to the U.S. State Department's latest Trafficking in Persons report. It recommended a 2012 anti-trafficking law be revised to include hereditary slavery.
(Additional reporting by Emma Farge in Geneva; Writing by Nellie Peyton; Editing by Peter Graff)
Great Lakes researchers found 3 shipwrecks this summer in Lake Superior. Here are their stories.
Miriam Marini, Detroit Free Press Thu, October 28, 2021,
Researchers at the Great Lakes Shipwreck Historical Society in Michigan this summer discovered and identified three shipwrecks that had been underwater for more than 100 years.
What did you do this summer?
"We have never located so many new wrecks in one season," said Bruce Lynn, executive director of the Great Lakes Shipwreck Museum. "Each shipwreck has its own story. ... These are fantastic, true stories that we can tell in the museum someday.”
The Whitefish Point-based team of historians, sonar technicians and divers found all three shipwrecks around the vicinity of Grand Marais, located on the south shore of Lake Superior at the eastern entryway to Pictured Rocks National Lakeshore.
Aboard the organization's 50-foot research vessel, David Boyd, the team searched the area where the ships were reported lost, searching 100 miles a day at 9 mph, according to a news release this week.
Here are the stories of the three shipwrecks found by researchers using marine sonic technology to scan the bottom of the lake: The remains of Dot, a schooner, were discovered by the Great Lakes Shipwreck Historical Society this summer.
Dot, a schooner
The steamship M.M. Drake was towing the Dot downbound from Marquette with a load of iron ore when the schooner started taking on water. The captain hailed the M.M. Drake, which came alongside his sinking ship and rescued his crew off before it dived for the bottom on Aug. 25, 1883.
The Dot, formerly the Canadian schooner Mary Merritt, was built in St. Catharines, Ontario, in 1865. Her remains rest in more than 350 feet of water. The remains of Frank Wheeler, a schooner-barge, were discovered by the Great Lakes Shipwreck Historical Society this summer.
Frank W. Wheeler, a schooner-barge
The schooner-barge, Frank W. Wheeler, was being towed by the steamer Kittie M. Forbes on Sept. 29, 1885, when a gale swept across the lake. The ships struggled in worsening conditions for hours and, soon, the Wheeler's crew realized its ship was sinking.
Capt. William Forbes, owner and captain of the Frank W. Wheeler, signaled his predicament to the Kittie M. Forbes, and the pair of vessels then tried to reach the safety of Grand Island, near present-day Munising.
Forbes soon ordered his men into the lifeboat, and 15 minutes later, his ship sank, bow first. A number of explosions were heard as the ship slipped beneath the waves. The Frank W. Wheeler was built at the West Bay City Shipbuilding Co. and, today, her wreckage lies in more than 600 feet of water.
The remains of Michigan, a schooner-barge, were discovered by the Great Lakes Shipwreck Historical Society this summer.
Michigan, a schooner-barge
The steamer M.M. Drake – the same vessel which towed the Dot years earlier – was towing the schooner-barge Michigan in the vicinity of Vermilion Point, near Whitefish Point. Both vessels were struggling in rough weather, when the Michigan’s hold began filling with water.
Within minutes, a massive wave smashed the two vessels together, destroying the M.M. Drake’s smokestack, leaving the ship without steam pressure.
Without power, the Drake soon lost headway and waves swept over her decks. Two nearby steel steamers, the Crescent City and Northern Wave, moved in to rescue the crews of both vessels.
Harry Brown, the Michigan’s cook, was the only casualty in this unusual double sinking on Oct. 2, 1901. The remains of the M.M. Drake were discovered in 1978 by the Shipwreck Society, and her rudder is on exhibit at Whitefish Point. The Michigan’s hull is in 650 feet of water.
Experts from Paris's Sorbonne University have been helping with pin-pointing the canoe's exact age and type, the statement said. A 3D model of it would also be made to allow replicas to be made, and to facilitate further study, it added.
It's believed canoe may have been used to extract water from the pool, or to make ritual offerings
The Mayan civilisation flourished before Spain conquered the region. In their time, the Mayans ruled large stretches of territory in what is now southern Mexico, Guatemala, Belize and Honduras.
The boat has been tentatively dated between 830-950 AD, towards the end of the Mayan civilisation's golden age.
Around this period, the Mayan civilisation suffered a major political collapse, marked by the abandonment of cities dotted around modern-day Central America - leaving ruins of towering pyramids and other stone buildings.
No single theory for this collapse has been widely accepted, but it's believed a combination of internal warfare, drought and overpopulation may have been contributing factors.
Advocates have said the rail network will help to alleviate poverty in the region. But critics argue that it risks damaging local ecosystems and undiscovered sites of historic importance.
A would-be car park in Rome becomes a ‘Garden of the Gods’
Nick Squires Fri, October 29, 2021
There are few phrases more prosaic or uninspiring than “underground car park.”
But it was the construction of just such a facility that led to the discovery in Rome of an archaeological treasure trove.
Engineers who burrowed beneath a 19th century office block to make space for the parking lot stumbled across the remains of gardens, villas, pavilions, and water features that once made up a vast estate built for the emperors of ancient Rome 2,000 years ago.
After eight years of excavating the site and five years of cataloging the tens of thousands of artifacts that were found, the collection has now been turned into Italy’s newest museum and will open to the public on Nov. 6.
Inviting visitors to an enclosed underground space would have been unthinkable just a few months ago, during the tougher days of the coronavirus pandemic.
But as life in Italy cautiously returns to normalcy, what was once an ancient retreat of rulers now beckons as a modern-day refuge for everyday Italians.
And as optimism returns, the museum serves as a poignant reminder of what the country has endured, and overcome, since facing the first lockdowns in the West in the spring of 2020. The office block above the Roman remains happens to be the headquarters of an association that provides insurance to Italy’s doctors and dentists. The new museum has been dedicated to the many who lost their lives to COVID-19.
“This place of beauty symbolically honors all the medics who were victims of the pandemic. Our thoughts are with them,” says Dario Franceschini, Italy’s minister for culture.
Doctors had put themselves at grave risk “by being close to their patients with an extraordinary level of commitment” during the pandemic, says Alberto Oliveti, the president of ENPAM, the health insurance association.
Among the more striking discoveries that archeologists made are a bear’s tooth and the bones of lions and ostriches. They are animals that the emperors imported from the farthest reaches of Roman territory and shed light on ancient entertainment.
“It would have been like a small zoo. Creatures like bears and lions would have been kept in cages but other animals, like deer, would have been free to wander the grounds,” says Giorgia Leoni, one of the principal architects involved in the project.
“The bigger, fierce animals would probably have been used in gladiatorial fights – similar to the games organized in the nearby Colosseum, but for the private viewing of the emperor.”
Archeologists also found animal remains that attest to the rich diet that the emperors and their acolytes would have enjoyed – oyster shells, sea urchins, and the bones of fish like tuna and bream, as well as mammals such as wild boar and cattle.
A panel in the museum explains that the favorite dishes of the Roman upper class included oyster pie, wild boar steaks, roasted warblers, and thrushes with asparagus.
“This was a very extensive site, full of gardens, statues, pavilions decorated with colored marble, mosaics and frescoes, as well as water features. The emperors even had windows made of transparent glass, which was very rare,” says Daniela Porro, a senior archeological official with the city of Rome.
The complex was built on the Esquiline Hill, the highest of the famous seven hills of Rome. It was originally constructed in the 1st century A.D. by a wealthy aristocrat, Lucius Aelius Lamia, who bequeathed it to Emperor Tiberius.
From there, it passed down to a succession of emperors, including Claudius and Caligula.
Extensive gardens would have surrounded shaded pavilions known as nymphaeum, which gives the museum its name – the Museo Ninfeo or Nymphaeum Museum.
Archeologists have also given it another name – Il Giardino degli Dei, or The Garden of the Gods.
Caligula was so enamored of the retreat that when a delegation of Jewish merchants from Alexandria in Egypt came to put their grievances to him, they could hardly get his attention. The emperor spent the whole time directing improvements and upgrades to the gardens and pavilions, classical sources record.
One of the most notorious of all emperors, Caligula is said to have had an incestuous relationship with his sister, to have fed prisoners to wild beasts, and to have made his horse a consul. But Claudio Borgognoni, another archeologist involved in the excavations, warned that classical sources claiming that some emperors were mad, bad, and dangerous to know are not always to be trusted –perhaps another lesson of this era.
“That said,” he says, “the Romans did hate him for claiming that he was a god and trying to establish a personality cult.”
The archeological find may not give a definitive answer on the emperor’s true nature, but it does shed light on the general conduct of ancient Rome. There are decorative bronze pendants from a bridle used by a cavalry officer, and a delicate doll’s leg, made out of bone, that was once played with by a child. Ink pots and clasp knives have been found, as well as hundreds of coins and fragments of amphorae, jugs, and bowls. The bones of red deer, roe deer, and boar were made into wind instruments and decorative objects. Archeologists found pieces of brightly colored marble that came from all over the empire: the Peloponnese in Greece, Tunisia, Spain, and Liguria in northern Italy.
“The quality of the material offers a unique vision of classical Rome, from its monumental architecture to its sumptuous decorations, its precious as well as everyday objects, the food that was eaten and the animals that were kept,” says Mirella Serlorenzi, the scientific director of the project. “The museum tells us the story of a privileged retreat of the ancient world.”
Young People Are Leaving Their Jobs in Record Numbers—And Not Going Back
Raisa Bruner Fri, October 29, 2021, Funemployment Whitney Green doesn't see herself returning to an office; after four years as a community therapist, she quit to move to Rome and is living off her savings.
Green is one of millions of Americans leaving traditional jobs this year—and choosing not to recommit to clocking in at all. This is the highest mass resignation the U.S. has seen since 2019, pre-pandemic, and the numbers are still rising. In June, 3.9 million quit. In July, it was another 3.9 million. In August, 4.3 million. The numbers are even more notable for young workers: in September, nearly a quarter of workers ages 20 to 34 were not considered part of the U.S. workforce—some 14 million Americans, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, who were neither working nor looking for work.
For some, it’s burnout. For others, the timing was ripe to refocus on side projects as the stresses of the pandemic started to wane. And for many, especially in a service sector dominated by “zillennials” (those in their late 20s on the border of Gen Z and millennial), poor treatment and low wages became unsustainable. Green represents one slice of that: she’s a 31-year-old with a master’s degree who decided to step back from earning income to take a self-imposed sabbatical and live off savings before working for herself one day. Meanwhile, there are an estimated 10.4 million jobs in the U.S. that remain unfilled, as this exodus—dubbed the Great Resignation—offers young workers time to nurse the wounds of pandemic burnout and untenable working conditions with dramatic life changes.
“They are saying, I love this industry, but I will not come back unless there are permanent wage increases.”
“This is a revolution, not a resignation,” says Ifeoma Ezimako, 23, who resides in Washington, D.C. A former hospitality worker and bartender, Ezimako was fed up with ill-tempered patrons and extra-low wages while working her last service job in March 2020; she had worked in service for five years, but enough was finally enough. As the behavior of customers deteriorated during the pandemic, she and her co-workers opened their eyes to the daily injustices of tipped work, she says. (A common experience: being asked to pull her mask down so patrons could see her face “to decide how much to tip.”) To her, the money just wasn’t worth the stress. She quit to refocus on herself, studying for a sociology degree with her family’s support. Now she volunteers with One Fair Wage, an activist organization that helps service industry employees organize for better standards.
The leisure and hospitality sector has the lowest median age of any industry, at 31.8 years, and today, Saru Jayaraman, president of One Fair Wage, says about half of surveyed service-industry workers say they plan to quit in the next year. Jayaraman is cautious in aligning this movement with that of white collar workers trading jobs for “funemployment.” “Maybe among white collar workers, it’s just people quietly resigning, but among service workers, they are organizing,” she says. “They are saying, I love this industry, but I will not come back unless there are permanent wage increases.” Even though many can’t afford to stop working, she says, they’ve drawn a line in the sand, thanks to the light-bulb moment of pandemic-precipitated challenges accessing unemployment assistance, worsening income inequality and newfound leverage due to staffing shortages.
There is a distinction between the experiences of Ezimako and Green. But both are part of a broader societal shift, wherein young workers are prioritizing their self-worth.
Now, for the first time in their careers, young people have the ability to do so. Workers like Green, who had well-paying jobs leading into the pandemic, have a greater sense of financial comfort after spending less and saving more during the past 19 months, says Harvard economist Lawrence Katz. Plus, the abundance of open jobs may—counterproductively—make workers feel more confident dipping out of the workforce. Katz cautions that this is less about young workers leaving the labor market entirely, but instead about “trying out new things, and taking advantage of new opportunities and not sticking with the old bargain.”
The pivot to remote work has also made possible a level of work-life balance that those in their 20s and early 30s—the first generation where half of kids had two parents working full-time—had never imagined. That’s especially true for millennials; a 2020 Gallup poll showed 74% did not want to return full-time to offices, the highest of any age cohort. Millennial women are particularly likely to stay home given the need for childcare flexibility. Over 309,000 women dropped out of the workforce in September alone. “Childcare is a piece that people have been underestimating for a while,” says Alicia Sasser Modestino, an economist at Northeastern University. Even before the pandemic it was a crisis; now, with day care center closures and—ironically—staff shortages for these very jobs, women may have no choice but to stay home, indefinitely.
Over 10 million jobs are unfilled in the U.S.; signs like these, seen in New Jersey and Pennsylvania, paper the country.Michelle Gustafson
For others, remote work just isn’t fulfilling enough. When Emma Grace Moon quit her marketing agency job in June, she was ready to disentangle herself from a structure that held her back. “I felt like I could exceed my trajectory way faster if it was in my hands, rather than reporting every year, every month, with a quarterly check-in. I felt like I could be making more and also growing way faster if I just did it myself,” she says. These days, Moon—who is just 22, having skipped college—goes it alone as a consultant. She’s making three times her former income, she says from her Brooklyn apartment; her area of expertise, working with direct-to-consumer brands, was primed for pandemic-era growth. She now also has the flexibility to travel and make her own hours, even if that often looks like working all the time instead of 9 to 5.
Someone like Moon doesn’t quite fit the typical understanding of the employment market in the U.S.; as an independent worker, she’s not filling an available job listing. But with six clients and counting, she’s certainly not underemployed and doesn’t see herself shifting back to working for someone else, ever. “It’s allowed me a lot of time to think and process and make better decisions than I probably would if I had the pressure of a management team,” she says. Plus, the anxiety of depending on others for income is long gone. “I’ve had PTSD from past roles where I’ve seen people get fired out of the blue, or I’ve been fired before,” she says, citing the instability of startups where many white collar Gen Z and millennial workers gravitate. “My goal is not to go back to having a boss."
The burnout of startup culture is common. Seattle-based engineer Cory Gabrielsen, 30, quit his job as the second employee at an agriculture technology startup in April. The travel demands were intense; he spent 14-day stretches on site visits overseeing robotic farm equipment, with requirements he calls “pretty insane.” After two years on the job, he was ready for time off. For several months after he quit, he says he did “nothing,” recovering from burnout. Read More: The Pandemic Revealed How Much We Hate Our Jobs. Now We Have a Chance to Reinvent Work
Now, he spends his days option trading, running a Twitter bot account that tracks Ethereum pricing, and dabbling in Web3 and cryptocurrency investments. And while he wouldn’t describe himself as happier now—he misses the social interaction of an office—his mood is more “neutral” day-to-day, and he looks forward to building his presence as an independent entity who can do what he wants when he wants. “I have no stress on the job compared to what I used to do,” he says. He’s not working full-time and has no concerns about money, thanks to his savings, investments and a boom time in the crypto world. “My goal is not to go back to having a boss,” he says.
Economists predict that the Great Resignation is only getting started, especially for Gen Z and millennial workers who are well positioned to find new ways to earn income. A former colleague of Gabrielsen’s quit the same day he did and has since moved to Amsterdam. Moon and Green say many of their friends have sought advice on how to shift away from their nine-to-fives. Jayaraman warns that, unless the restaurant industry introduces drastic changes, even more young service workers will choose their mental health over income. Without significant government investment in childcare, young mothers will prioritize their families. Whatever their motivation, though, young blue collar and white collar workers alike are finding themselves happier—and more independent. For Green, the change has helped kick-start her dream of a balanced, fulfilling career, which becomes more of a reality with every daily scoop of gelato.
—With reporting by Mariah Espada
Deere, UAW reach tentative pact; strike continues for now
FILE - Members of the United Auto Workers strike outside of a John Deere plant, Wednesday, Oct. 20, 2021, in Ankeny, Iowa. The farm equipment manufacturer reached a tentative labor agreement Saturday, Oct. 30, with the United Auto Workers union. But a UAW strike that began Oct. 14 will continue -- and details of the proposed contract will not be released -- while workers study the terms of the agreement in advance of a vote. (AP Photo/Charlie Neibergall, File)More The Associated Press Sat, October 30, 2021,
Farm equipment manufacturer Deere & Co. reached a tentative labor agreement Saturday with the United Auto Workers union.
But a UAW strike that began Oct. 14 will continue -- and details of the proposed contract will not be released -- while workers study the terms of the agreement in advance of a vote.
The pact would cover more than 10,000 production and maintenance workers at 12 Deere sites in Iowa, Illinois and Kansas.
The strike began after UAW workers overwhelmingly rejected an initial proposed contract that would have delivered immediate 5% raises for some workers and 6% for others depending on their positions at Deere factories. The pact also called for 3% raises in 2023 and 2025.
After the first deal was rejected, UAW “negotiators focused on improving the areas of concern identified by our members,’’ said Chuck Browning, director of the union’s farm equipment department.
The U.S. economy’s unexpectedly strong rebound from last year’s brief but intense coronavirus recession has created labor shortages -- and handed workers more leverage to demand higher pay and better benefits.
The contract talks come as strong sales this year helped Moline, Illinois-based Deere report $4.7 billion net income for the first nine months of its fiscal year, which was more than double the $2 billion it reported a year ago.
The company is expecting to earn more than $5.7 billion this fiscal year.
Deere, UAW agree on new 6-year contract subject to union vote
Striking members of the United Auto Workers (UAW) picket at the Deere & Co farm equipment plant before a visit by U.S. Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack in Ankeny, Iowa
Sat, October 30, 2021,
(Reuters) - U.S. tractor maker Deere & Co agreed on a new six-year contract with the United Auto Workers (UAW) union that would be subject to a vote by the company's striking workers, the company said in a statement on Saturday.
The new deal on wages and employee benefits covers about 10,100 employees across 12 facilities in Iowa, Illinois and Kansas.
"The negotiators focused on improving the areas of concern identified by our members during our last ratification process," said Chuck Browning, UAW Vice President and Director of the Agricultural Implement Department.
UAW said it will not release details of the tentative agreement until members at Deere locations meet and review terms of their proposed contract.
"Out of respect for the process and our employees, we’re unable to speak to the details of the agreement," the company said.
About 90% of the union's members in early October rejected a previous tentative deal agreed between Deere and the UAW, and subsequently decided to go on strike.
The strike is the first against Deere by the UAW in more than three decades and comes in the middle of the U.S. corn and soybean harvest season, at a time when farmers are struggling to find parts for tractors and combines.
The last strike against Deere by the UAW was in 1986 when workers sat out for 163 days.
(This story corrects number of employees, facilities in paragraph two)
(Reporting by Kannaki Deka and Sneha Bhowmik in Bengaluru; editing by Diane Craft)
In Rittenhouse case, Americans see what they want to see
SCOTT BAUER Sat, October 30, 2021, MADISON, Wis. (AP) — From the moment Kyle Rittenhouse shot three people on the streets of Kenosha during protests over the police shooting of a Black man, he’s personified America’s polarization.
The 17-year-old from Illinois who carried an AR-style rifle and idolized police was cheered by those who despised the Black Lives Matter movement and the sometimes destructive protests that followed George Floyd’s death. He was championed by pro-gun conservatives who said he was exercising his Second Amendment rights and defending cities from “antifa,” an umbrella term for leftist militants.
Others saw him as the most worrisome example yet of vigilante citizens taking to the streets with guns, often with the tacit support of police — a “chaos tourist,” in the words of the lead prosecutor, who came to Kenosha looking for trouble.
Though Rittenhouse and all three men he shot are white, many people saw racism at the heart of Kenosha — an armed white teen, welcomed by police to a city where activists were rallying against a white officer’s shooting of a Black man, and allowed to walk past a police line immediately after shooting three people.
That division is likely to be on display at Rittenhouse's trial, which opens Monday with jury selection. Rittenhouse, now 18, faces several charges, including homicide — and could see a life sentence if convicted.
“It’s another battle in what has become the central story of our time —- the culture wars,” John Baick, who teaches modern American history at Western New England University in Springfield, Massachusetts, said.
But the case has been exactly that, almost from the moment the shootings happened — driven by powerful interest groups, extremists, politicians and others using it to push their own agendas.
Rittenhouse’s defenders, including his family, have leaned into some of the symbolism. A website devoted to his defense — and raising money for it — greets visitors with a quote attributed to James Monroe: “The right of self-defense never ceases.” The site blasts “Big Tech, a corrupt media, and dishonest politicians” out to “ruin the life of Kyle Rittenhouse.” The site briefly sold branded “Free Kyle” merchandise before vendors backed away.
Ryan Busse, a former firearms industry executive who is now a senior adviser at the gun-safety organization Giffords, which was founded by former U.S. Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, said he's worried that Rittenhouse will become “some heroic martyr.”
“I’m worried about empowering more actors like him who think it’s glamorous to go kill somebody with a rifle,” Busse said.
Rittenhouse made the 20-mile (32-kilometer) trip from his home in Antioch, Illinois, north to Kenosha as the city was in the throes of several nights of chaotic demonstrations after an officer shot Jacob Blake in the back following a domestic disturbance. At least one call had gone out on social media for armed citizens to respond, though Rittenhouse's attorneys say that wasn't what brought Rittenhouse to the city.
Videos taken that night show him with a first-aid kit at his side, along with his rifle, bragging about his medical abilities. Video also shows police appearing to welcome Rittenhouse and other armed citizens, including handing them bottles of water.
Later in the evening, video shows a man named Joseph Rosenbaum chasing Rittenhouse in the parking lot of a used car dealership; seconds later, Rittenhouse shoots and kills him. In the ensuing minutes, Rittenhouse — pursued by other protesters — shot and killed Anthony Huber, who swung a skateboard at him, and shot and wounded Gaige Grosskreutz, who had stepped toward Rittenhouse with a pistol in hand.
Video then shows Rittenhouse walking toward police with his hands up, his rifle slung over his shoulder, as protesters yell that he has just shot people. Rittenhouse went back home, turning himself into police the next day.
The day Rittenhouse was arrested, Democratic U.S. Rep. Ayanna Pressley, of Massachusetts, tweeted that the shootings had been committed by a “white supremacist domestic terrorist.”
Rittenhouse's defense team pushed back against that, saying Rittenhouse isn't a white supremacist and wasn't aware of “hateful rhetoric” on social media about the Kenosha protests leading up to the shootings. The Anti-Defamation League found no evidence of extremism in his social media accounts.
But Rittenhouse was embraced by the Proud Boys, a far-right extremist group that generally traffics in white nationalism, according to the Southern Poverty Law Center. The group’s chairman, Enrique Tarrio, and other members have been shown wearing T-shirts that say, “Kyle Rittenhouse Did Nothing Wrong!” And soon after being freed on bond, Rittenhouse was photographed at a Wisconsin bar with people who flashed a hand signal associated with the Proud Boys and sang a song that has become an anthem of the group. Rittenhouse flashed the hand signal, too.
The fact that Rittenhouse wasn’t a member of any extremist group before the shootings doesn’t matter now given how he’s been embraced by them, said Alex Friedfeld, an investigative researcher for the Center on Extremism with the Anti-Defamation League.
He said extremists will be looking to turn the trial to advantage. Some view the mere fact that Rittenhouse was charged as evidence that courts and the system are stacked against conservatives, or that the system is biased against white people, Friedfeld said.
“It starts to kind of lay the groundwork for the idea that people need to tear down these institutions and the system is broken and needs to be changed, which requires action,” he said.
Baick, the historian, called the Rittenhouse trial “a moment for reality TV" and said the entire case takes its place amid one of the nation's most turbulent periods in generations.
“We have to link in Jan. 6,” he said. “We have to link in military groups across the country, anti-mask protests, school board protests. Whether it's Kenosha, or Minneapolis, or the entire state of Florida, these debates over the role of government, the role of law and order — these are deeply unsettled in America right now in a way they haven't been since the 1960s.”
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Associated Press writer Doug Glass contributed from Minneapolis.
FILE - In this Aug. 25, 2020, file photo, Kyle Rittenhouse carries a weapon as he walks along Sheridan Road in Kenosha, Wis., during a night of unrest following the weekend police shooting of Jacob Blake. Rittenhouse is white. So were the three men he shot during street protests in Kenosha in 2020. But for many people, Rittenhouse's trial will be watched closely as the latest referendum on race and the American judicial system. (Adam Rogan/The Journal Times via AP, File)
This undated photo shows Anthony Huber, right, and Hannah Gittings. Huber was fatally shot, Aug. 25, 2020, along with Joseph Rosenbaum by Kyle Rittenhouse during a protest of the police shooting of Jacob Blake, a Black man, by a white police officer on Aug. 23. Rittenhouse was 17-years-old when he traveled from his home in Illinois, just across the Wisconsin border, during protests that broke out. Jury selection in the Rittenhouse trial was due to start Monday, Nov. 1, 2021. (Hannah Gittings via AP).
Kenosha Protest Shooting RaceFILE - In this Aug. 25, 2020 file photo, a group holds rifles as they watch protesters on the street in Kenosha, Wis. Protests continued following the police shooting of Jacob Blake two days earlier. Kyle Rittenhouse is white. So were the three men he shot during street protests in Kenosha in 2020. But for many people, Rittenhouse's trial will be watched closely as the latest referendum on race and the American judicial system.
AP Photo/Morry Gash
Kyle Rittenhouse will stand trial Monday for shooting three men, killing two of them, on Aug. 25, 2020, during the third night of protests in Kenosha following the police shooting of Jacob Blake.
Keeping with a longstanding practice employed across “thousands” of cases tried before him, a Wisconsin judge has indicated that attorneys will not be allowed to refer to any of the three individuals shot by Kyle Rittenhouse as “victims.” However, Kenosha County Circuit Court Judge Bruce Schroeder ruled on Monday that those individuals could be referred to as having been involved with “arson, rioting, or looting” if the facts proved those latter accusations true.
“This is a long-held opinion of mine, which very few judges, I guess, share with me,” said the judge with reference to his disdain for the particular moniker. “The word ‘victim’ is a loaded, loaded word, and I think ‘alleged victim’ is a cousin to it.”
The judge said referring to the “decedent” or something similar was more “appropriate” because it neither implied the defendant’s guilt nor implied the innocence of those killed.
Assistant Kenosha County District Attorney Thomas Binger agreed with the judge that he has personally been admonished “in the thousands” of times for using the term “victim” in Schroder’s court, but Binger argued unsuccessfully that the defense should be similarly handicapped from using inflammatory terms to refer to the individuals killed or injured by Rittenhouse.
Schroeder said he would “encourage restraint in opening statements” but said he would “let the evidence show” what it shows as to the decedents.
Rittenhouse shot and killed Joseph Rosenbaum, 36, and Anthony Huber, 26, on Aug. 25, 2020. He injured Gaige Grosskreutz, 26. The killings occurred during protests surrounding the shooting of Jacob Blake by police officer Rusten Sheskey.
“I don’t think I’m inclined at all toward prior restraint,” Schroeder said. “I would encourage restraint in opening statement, but let the evidence show what the evidence shows. And if the evidence shows that any (or more than one) of these people were engaged in arson, rioting, or looting, then I’m not going to tell the defense they can’t call them that.”
The judge said he was accustomed to attorneys using various adjectives to “beatify” and “demonize” various individuals. He recalled one case where a prosecutor refused to a defendant as a “worthless excuse for a human being,” which he said was clearly “out of line.” But the judge said he had no issue with attorneys using words “a person has earned by his behavior.”
Binger said the terms “rioters, looters, and arsonists are as loaded if not more loaded than the term victim.”
“It’s a double standard,” Binger said, but the judge disagreed.
“Their behavior that night has nothing to do with this case unless it was witnessed by the defendant,” Binger continued. “This is going to be a case about self defense, so we’re going to talk about the defendant’s state of mind . . . his state of mind is the most important thing in this case. If there are things he witnessed with his own eyes by Mr. Huber, Mr. Rosenbaum, and Mr. Grosskreutz, I have no problem with that because it does go to his state of mind.”
Prosecutors conceded at the Monday hearing that Rosenbaum had been recorded saying “inflammatory things to other people” before he was killed, but Binger said Rittenhouse appears to have known nothing about those statements. Therefore, Binger said those statements should not come into evidence during the trial. Generally, evidence to suggest Rosenbaum acted in conformity with having a bad character would be inadmissible, Binger argued.
Judge Schroeder suggested Binger could say “Kyle Rittenhouse is a cold blooded killer” during closing arguments, and Binger agreed that he should be able to do so if he pleased.
A significant portion of the two-and-a-half hour hearing was spent hashing out other evidentiary issues.
Among them were evidentiary battles over whether an officer who interacted with Rittenhouse regarding an unrelated incident before the deadly shootings would be able to testify at trial. Prosecutors said the officer described her conversations with the defendant as “brief but cordial interactions” but sought a protective order against the officer’s testimony out of fear that it would come across as if the authorities had “approved” Rittenhouse’s actions as a lawful activity. Though prosecutors said Rittenhouse’s group engaged in some minimal conversations with a business owner about protective duties, Rittenhouse was not a professional security guard. Rather, they argued that Rittenhouse was “wandering on his own” and engaged in conduct “well beyond his purview.” The defense said the officer’s observations of Rittenhouse’s behavior were relevant to the question of whether the defendant was “reckless” — and that term carries significant weight under the relevant Wisconsin law by which Rittenhouse will be judged. The judge said he was inclined to allow the defense to question the officer but suggested a preference for ruling on the fly about any particular types of questions as the testimony develops at trial. The defense made clear that it did not wish to question the officer about the underlying incident which led to the contact between Rittenhouse and the officer in the first place.
The parties also battled about whether a use-of-force expert would be allowed to testify about video of the deadly shooting. Prosecutors said the expert proffered by the defense was biased because he issued a report filled with speculation about the intent of various people portrayed in a video of the shootings and of their aftermath. The state also said the proffered reason for the expert’s testimony — to walk the jury through the video — could be accomplished by other means. They said the jury was “well equipped” to assess the matter using a stopwatch or slow-motion video and that no expert was necessary. The defense countered that the jury needed to be keyed in on one section of video that lasted only one second and another that lasted seven seconds.
“It’s our position,” a defense attorney said, that the situation required “self-defense.”
“I’m going to turn myself into the police — I had to,” Rittenhouse said when asked if he shot someone shortly after pulling the trigger.
Jury selection in the case begins Monday. Watch the proceeding below; it is queued to the discussion about the word “victim.”
From humiliating defendants to giving them wide latitude, the ‘confident’ judge overseeing Kyle Rittenhouse’s murder trial doesn’t shy from controversy
Stacy St. Clair, Chicago Tribune Sat, October 30, 2021
KENOSHA, Wis. — In the weeks leading up to Kyle Rittenhouse’s murder trial, attorneys on both sides made clear they wanted prospective jurors to fill out questionnaires before the selection process began.
It was a fairly routine request, given judges and attorneys across the country have relied upon such forms for decades in high-profile trials to identify people with potential biases and conflicts of interest.
But Kenosha Circuit Judge Bruce Schroeder wouldn’t hear of it.
“I maybe have tried more murder cases than anyone in the state and I’ve never used a jury questionnaire that I can recall,” he told the lawyers. “And if I did, it was a moment of weakness.”
And so it goes in Schroeder’s courtroom, where Wisconsin’s longest-serving circuit judge presides over cases with hard-line positions and chatty asides.
Schroeder, 75, will step into the national spotlight Monday as jury selection begins in Rittenhouse’s murder trial.
Rittenhouse, who lived in far north suburban Chicago, was 17 when he fatally shot two people and injured a third in downtown Kenosha with an AR-15-style rifle that police say a friend illegally purchased for him. Despite not being old enough to openly carry a gun, Rittenhouse took it upon himself to patrol the southeast Wisconsin town amid the turmoil surrounding the shooting of Jacob Blake, a Black man, by a white police officer in August 2020.
The case, which laid bare the country’s deep political divide over gun rights and racial inequities, will be undoubtedly the biggest in Schroeder’s career, but he is not new to the public stage or controversy. A circuit judge since 1983, he has made headlines for decades as he pushed for more flexibility on state-mandated child support rules, imposed a sentence intended to shame a defendant and became among the first judges in the United States to require sex workers to take AIDS tests.
At one point, so many Kenosha defendants petitioned to have their cases moved from Schroeder’s courtroom, it caused a workload imbalance at the courthouse. Between August and November 2006, as many as 250 defendants used their one-time option to switch judges rather than face Schroeder, according to The Associated Press.
The judge called the situation “almost irrational,” while many in the local legal community believed it reflected Schroeder’s reputation for handing out tough punishments. Though well-known for giving defendants leeway to present their defense, he is not considered as merciful once there’s a conviction.
“Some would view him as a stiff sentencer, and I think that was behind a lot of the switching,” said veteran defense attorney Terry Rose, who does not opt out of Schroeder’s courtroom unless a client insists. “But you will be able to get a fair trial and be able to put on your defense. That’s what I care about.”
Schroeder’s immoderate punishments raised eyebrows in 2018, when he required, as a condition of a woman’s shoplifting sentence, that she inform the management of any store she entered that she was on supervision for the offense. The judge acknowledged the unusual sentence was meant to humiliate the woman, stating that although society no longer places defendants in the stockade for their crimes, “embarrassment does have a valuable place in deterring criminality.”
A Wisconsin Court of Appeals disagreed earlier this year and overturned part of the sentence. In upholding Schroeder’s order banning the woman from the outlet mall where the shoplifting occurred, the court found the additional restrictions could make it difficult for the woman to buy groceries or other necessities if store managers in other locations refused her entry because of her confession.
“We are not persuaded that embarrassing or humiliating defendants with a state-imposed broad notification program promotes their rehabilitation,” the decision stated.
All judges — especially those who have been on the bench since the Reagan administration — are overturned at some point in their careers, and Schroeder acknowledges his reversals openly. He has mentioned a few during Rittenhouse’s pretrial hearings, including one case in which an evidentiary mistake led the Wisconsin Supreme Court to order a new trial for a man convicted of killing his wife and given a life sentence in 2008.
But neither the threat of reversals nor the increased scrutiny surrounding the Rittenhouse trial will influence how he approaches the case, several local attorneys told the Tribune.
“It won’t faze him at all,” longtime Kenosha defense attorney Michael Cicchini said. “One thing that he is, is confident. You may have picked up on that.”
A die-hard Milwaukee Brewers fan with a deep affinity for Kenosha history, Schroeder has been a mainstay at the city’s stately courthouse for a half-century. He joined the district attorney’s office in 1971 after graduating from Marquette University Law School and became the county’s top prosecutor just one year later.
He often reminisces about his time as a prosecutor while on the bench, offering the occasionally meandering anecdote to explain a ruling. At a recent Rittenhouse hearing, for example, he said he would allow an expert witness to testify about the shooting timeline because bystanders traditionally have unreliable memories about time and distances.
“I had a deputy sheriff one time testify that the width of a standard-sized automobile was 4 feet and you could not shake him from that,” Schroeder said. “He could not be shook and the case was lost — and I know because I was the prosecutor.”
Then-Gov. Anthony Earl, a Democrat, appointed Schroeder to the bench in 1983, and he has won every election for the nonpartisan job since that time. He was reelected without any opposition in 2020, and his current term ends in 2026.
In the months leading up to the Rittenhouse trial, Schroeder has made a series of off-the-cuff statements that have raised eyebrows among observers. The most recent came Monday, when he reiterated that prosecutors may not refer to the men Rittenhouse shot as “victims.” The defense, however, will be allowed to call them “rioters, looters and arsonists” if they present evidence supporting the claim.
Joseph Rosenbaum and Anthony Huber both died after Rittenhouse shot them, while a third man, Gaige Grosskreutz, was injured.
“He can demonize them if he wants, if he thinks it will win points with the jury,” Schroeder said.
It’s not uncommon for judges to bar the word “victims” in self-defense cases where there is a dispute over who bears responsibility. Prosecutors acknowledge it’s a long-standing rule in Schroeder’s courtroom and not unique to Rittenhouse’s trial, but the edict drew sharp criticism from social justice advocates who repeatedly have accused the judge of favoring Rittenhouse.
“This case continues to be a show of white privilege,” said Justin Blake, the uncle of Jacob Blake. “This is eroding confidence in the justice system and making a mockery of our constitution.”
Local attorneys say the decision reflects Schroeder’s penchant for giving defendants wide latitude to tell jurors their side of the story. Several told the Tribune that the judge would have ruled the same way if the accused wasn’t Rittenhouse.
“This is a man who has given the defense a chance to present their case as long as I’ve been in his courtroom,” Cicchini said. “He’s very consistent in that way, and that’s a good thing for all defendants regardless of their skin color.”
Protesters called for Schroeder’s resignation this summer when he refused to revoke Rittenhouse’s bond after pictures showed him allegedly socializing with a far-right group and flashing a hand sign appropriated by some white supremacists.
Prosecutors acknowledge they cannot prove Rittenhouse’s connection to fringe groups before the shooting, but they say they have evidence Rittenhouse met for lunch after a court hearing earlier this year with several high-ranking members of the Proud Boys organization, a far-right group known for street fights that the Anti-Defamation League characterizes as “misogynistic, Islamophobic, transphobic and anti-immigration,” with some members espousing “white supremacist and anti-Semitic ideologies.”
The Southern Poverty Law Center labels the organization a general hate group.
Upon arrival at a bar in nearby Mount Pleasant, Wisconsin, Rittenhouse posed with two men while flashing the “OK” sign, which prosecutors described as “co-opted as a symbol of white supremacy/white power.” He took several other photos while drinking three beers over 90 minutes, prosecutors said.
Rittenhouse’s attorneys repeatedly have denied he is a member of the organization. Prosecutors said they would present evidence showing the teen flew to Florida shortly after the bar gathering and was picked up at the airport by the Proud Boys’ national leader.
Schroeder also barred prosecutors from mentioning the alleged connection during the trial, saying it could unfairly prejudice the jury. In doing so, however, he acknowledged he had never heard of the Proud Boys before the case, didn’t know if they were actually a hate-inspired group and suggested many organizations, including street gangs, force people to join against their will.
“Pope Benedict was a member of the Nazi Youth because he had to be,” the judge said.
Schroeder also said there could be non-nefarious reasons for the photographs, which show Rittenhouse wearing a “Free as (expletive)” slogan on his shirt. The bar meeting could have been a coincidence, and Rittenhouse may have been merely happy to take pictures with people who supported him.
The judge downplayed the defendant flashing the “OK” sign in the photo, too, saying he had never heard of it used in a negative way. The symbol’s relevance among white supremacy groups has been well-documented by the media in recent years and it was declared a symbol of hate by the ADL in 2019.
“I don’t know about it and I sit in criminal court all day long and I hear a lot of criminally charged court cases, believe me, and I never heard about this hand gesture,” Schroeder said. “The first time I saw it, or a version of it, was Chef Boyardee on a can of spaghetti.”
Schroeder’s comments stirred anger among some, prompting plans for a protest outside the courthouse before jury selection begins Monday. Justin Blake intends to be among the people demonstrating.
“These rulings are not OK,” Blake said. “And we want everyone to know that.”
About 150 people are expected to report for jury duty Monday in Kenosha. Schroeder has said he’s confident the panel can be picked by day’s end.
Ahead of Rittenhouse trial, race seen as underlying issue
AARON MORRISON Fri, October 29, 2021,
Kyle Rittenhouse, the aspiring police officer who gunned down three people in Kenosha, Wisconsin, during a protest against racism and police brutality, is white. So were those he shot. But for many, his trial next week will be watched closely as the latest referendum on race and the American legal system.
“Make the connection,” said Justin Blake, a Black man whose nephew Jacob was a key part of the backstory of the case. "This is clearly Black and white.”
Rittenhouse was 17 when he used an AR-style semiautomatic rifle to kill two people and wound a third during the summer of 2020. He had gone to Kenosha, he said, to protect property from protesters who took to the streets in anger days after Jacob Blake was shot in the back by a white Kenosha officer.
Rittenhouse faces the equivalent of murder and attempted murder charges and could get life in prison. He has said he fired in self-defense after being attacked by protesters.
After the shooting, he drew sizable support from opponents of the Black Lives Matter movement and supporters of gun rights. Pro-gun conservatives helped raise $2 million for his bail and legal defense. After he got out of jail, he was photographed with apparent members of the far-right Proud Boys.
If Rittenhouse gets off, that would send an ominous message to Black America, Justin Blake said.
“If our country shows that you can shoot Caucasians who support us, then this country can never stand up in any international or global hearing and talk about human rights,” the uncle said. He said if Rittenhouse goes free, white people will be able to “ride down every African American community and just have fun, like you’re going hunting or something.”
Rittenhouse's lawyers have said he is not a white supremacist, and his defense fund has said he was not part of a militia group.
Some activists also see a racial double standard in the way the Blake and Rittenhouse cases were handled.
Blake was shot seven times and paralyzed at the door of his SUV as his children sat in the back seat. Police say Rusten Sheskey and two other officers responding to a domestic disturbance had tried to arrest him on an outstanding warrant and, during a scuffle, a pocketknife fell from Blake’s pants.
Blake has said he picked the knife up and was prepared to surrender once he put it in the vehicle.
Rittenhouse experienced a seemingly different response from law enforcement.
He and others were armed and professed to be there protecting the city’s businesses and homes after protesters set fires and vandalized property on two previous nights of unrest in Kenosha, and after weeks of sometimes-violent demonstrations around the U.S. over the police killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis.
Law enforcement officers saw Rittenhouse and other armed people on the streets that night despite a citywide curfew and passed them bottles of water. One officer was heard over a loudspeaker saying, “We appreciate you guys.”
Later that night, Rittenhouse was chased through a used car lot by Joseph Rosenbaum, a participant in the protests, before he fatally shot the man. Rittenhouse was then seen running onto a street with protesters after him.
A man named Anthony Huber struck Rittenhouse with a skateboard, and the teenager shot and killed him. Seconds later, Gaige Grosskreutz stepped toward Rittenhouse with a pistol, and Rittenhouse shot him in the arm.
Even as people on the street tried to flag Rittenhouse to police officers as the person responsible for the shootings, he was not stopped. With his weapon slung over his shoulder, he put his hands in the air and was waved past a police line.
Hours later, he turned himself in to police in his hometown of Antioch, Illinois.
“What looms above this trial is this whole notion that we have two justice systems, one for Black America and another for white America,” said Blake family attorney Ben Crump, the civil rights lawyer who has also represented the families of Trayvon Martin and Ahmaud Arbery, both killed in what prosecutors portrayed as acts of vigilantism.
“I just think that right now in America, there is this notion that certain people have the right to solve every disagreement with a gun,” Crump said. “And especially, when we see people protesting for justice for the killing of Black people, that we don’t have to respect their rights to the First Amendment.”
A week before trial, the judge in Rittenhouse's case ruled that prosecutors and the defense cannot refer to the men killed as “victims,” but can call them “rioters” or “looters” if the evidence supports that. The ruling outraged Black activists, who pointed to it as another racial double standard in the judicial system.
Ash-Lee Woodard Henderson, co-executive director of the Highlander Research and Education Center and a leader of the Movement for Black Lives, said Rittenhouse left home with the intention of dispensing “vigilante justice, for the sake of so-called protecting buildings and businesses, at the expense of human life.”
“To not call the people that are directly impacted by that ‘victims’ is nothing but the tenets of white supremacy masked in unjust laws,” Henderson said.
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Video journalist Carrie Antlfinger in Milwaukee, Wisconsin contributed. Morrison, who reported from New York City, is a member of the AP’s Race and Ethnicity team. Follow him on Twitter: https://www.twitter.com/aaronlmorrison
In this Sept. 3, 2020 file photo, Justin Blake, uncle of Jacob Blake, protests outside the Grace Lutheran Church where Democratic presidential candidate former Vice President Joe Biden held an event in Kenosha, Wis. Kyle Rittenhouse is white. So were the three men he shot during street protests in Kenosha in 2020. But for many people, Rittenhouse's trial will be watched closely as the latest referendum on race and the American judicial system. (AP Photo/Morry Gash, File)
